Chapter 386: Risk, Set off to the Mountain
Not long after they had eaten, their eldest nephew Lin Wei came over after school, and his loud voice filled the place with joy.
Soon everyone was full from the grilled lamb skewers, and some were a little bloated. After eating their fill, Xiulan and the others went back to the house to sit and chat, while Lin Heng, his eldest brother, and Lin Wei went to the mountain stream to swim.
Now all children are strictly forbidden to swim anywhere else except here. If they are caught, they will be hung up and whipped mercilessly.
While bathing, they caught a few more creek groupers, and after they were done bathing, they grilled them on the grill.
Lin Heng was very satisfied with today's barbecue. Not only was the homemade mutton delicious, but the quantity was also large, so he could eat as much as he wanted.
They didn't return home until dusk. After returning home, Xiulan started to braise the internal organs. There was some old marinade frozen in the refrigerator, and she could just add some new ingredients and braise them directly.
Braise over high heat for three hours, then cover and let it soak in the marinade overnight to fully absorb the flavor.
They ate a lot of mutton in the afternoon, and in the evening they had some hawthorn cake and a plate of stir-fried winter melon slices, and no other greasy food.
The next morning, we had a treat. We took out the braised mutton and removed the head, revealing a lot of meat. We made a soul vinegar soup that was so delicious that it would make you want to swallow your tongue.
Especially the sheep's face skin is particularly soft after being braised, and there is lean meat inside. Dip it in the vinegar soup and take a bite. The taste and meat aroma all bloom in your mouth, making you want to just close your eyes and enjoy this feeling.
The lamb legs also tasted particularly delicious after being braised. Every time at this time, Lin Heng would sigh that the invention of braised food was truly genius. All kinds of ingredients that were originally not very delicious could instantly become top-notch delicacies after being braised.
After breakfast, Lin Heng sent some braised food to his parents and elder brother. Xiulan boiled the stewed soup and put it in the freezer again. With the freezer, it was much more convenient for her to braise the food.
There was nothing to do in the next few days. The main job was to dig potatoes. The potato seeds were also the virus-free potato seedlings bought this year. Therefore, the yield was nearly twice as high as last year, and the sizes were also much larger. The largest one could weigh two kilograms.
After digging potatoes, he went to the city again and sold scorpions with his eldest brother. He had sold the ultraviolet lamp to his eldest brother a long time ago, and now he sold scorpions only to his mother.
In addition, he also traveled around to understand the development of the times and look for opportunities of his own.
His third uncle's family didn't buy grass carp fry in the end, so his eldest brother took the initiative to catch some of the extra fry for them.
In the blink of an eye it is already August. Time is like an avalanche. The older you get, the faster it goes by. It seems like the end of the year is here in the blink of an eye.
The weather has been unusually dry recently, with the sun shining brightly for more than ten days in a row.
On the afternoon of August 1st, Lin Heng asked his mother to look after his two sons. He, Caiyun, Xiulan and Xiaoxia went to Shibadanggou together, holding a small net made of window gauze in their hands.
The temperature in the mountains dropped quickly after the sun went down. Soon they arrived at Shibadanggou. Xiaoxia didn't know what to do yet, so Caiyun pulled her head up and asked curiously, "Aunt, are we going to catch fish?"
"Yes, catching fish and shrimps." Caiyun said with a smile.
Lin Heng in front also smiled and said, "We've arrived. We can start now."
After saying that, he jumped to the edge of the small puddle in the ditch, reached out to clear away all the branches and stones in it, and then he could feel densely packed small shrimps. He took a fine net and scooped up a handful, including dried shrimps and stream grouper.
"Sure enough, it's enough for us to eat this time." Lin Heng said with a smile.
Xiulan also nodded happily: "There are so many small puddles. It looks like we can catch two or three pounds today. We can go back and make shrimp paste."
The crops couldn't stand the drought, but there was nothing we could do. We had to make do with the hardship and catch shrimps. The most abundant thing in the mountain stream was small shrimps. Now that the water was almost dry, we could catch a whole net with one scoop.
"Wow, so many shrimps!!"
Xiaoxia was standing by and watching the shrimps being poured into the bucket. She was screaming with joy and dancing with joy.
"I finally caught this fish."
After three consecutive nets, Lin Heng laughed and said that he had caught this finger-long fish.
Xiulan looked at the shrimps in the bucket and said with a smile, "Come on, let's go up. I think we can get more than three pounds today."
Lin Heng nodded and went up along the mountain stream. Not only could he find shrimps and small fish, but he could also catch mountain crabs. These were very plump in August, and if they were fried, they would make the kids next door cry with envy.
They are not trying to kill the fish by exhausting the resources. If they don't eat the shrimps, they will soon dry up and will appear again when the water level rises.
Several people fished all the way to the top of the ravine, and except for a few large pools of water, they fished everywhere else.
"Look at the catch!"
Returning to the road from the ravine, Lin Heng said with a smile.
"There are quite a lot. Let's go back and clean them and take care of them for half a day." Xiulan showed him the bucket, but she couldn't see clearly because the water was muddy.
"Then let's go back to the house." Lin Heng nodded and took the three of them home.
The sun has set on the road now, and grown wax gourds can be seen on the roadside. Because the mountains here are high, they will take another half month to mature.
After enjoying the scenery at dusk, they returned to the house after a while. Mother Lin was at home playing with her two grandsons crawling around on the bed.
"How did you harvest?" Mother Lin asked curiously when she saw them coming back.
"I think we harvested about four or five kilograms." Xiulan said with a smile.
Mother Lin was shocked: "So many?"
"Of course."
Lin Heng said proudly, and went to get a large basin to pour out the things. Then he took three buckets, filled them with water, and put the crabs, shrimps, and small fish into the buckets separately.
When I put the water into the bucket, I found that there were still the majority of shrimps, about two or three pounds, all black-shell shrimps. There were also almost two pounds of crabs. There were fewer small fish, less than half a pound. This is because once the water dries up, many birds will catch the fish and eat them.
When Mother Lin saw it, she nodded immediately: "That's a lot, that's really not bad."
"Let's fry the crabs and eat them now. You can bring some back for my dad later."
Lin Heng caught the crab and cut it in half. Then he dipped the broken part in batter and fried it in a pan until golden brown.
Because we used an electric oven, there was no need to light a fire and the cooking was quick, the crabs were fried in no time.
Two small pots of two kilograms of fried crabs were fried. They were golden in color, fragrant and crispy, and were a perfect snack.
It's worth running around for the whole afternoon just for these few crabs.
“It’s delicious!”
Xiaoxia cheered most sincerely while eating crabs.
Except for some left for Lin's father, Lin Heng and his friends ate all the crabs one by one in a short while.
Those small fish fry were left to the turtles raised by Xiaoxia. Those little turtles are still alive and laid eggs this year, but they did not hatch successfully.
The dried shrimps were kept overnight to let them expel dirt, and then the next morning, Xiulan cleaned them and fried them all.
Add some minced meat, chili peppers, onions, ginger and garlic to make shrimp chili sauce. Store it in the freezer and take it out when you want to eat it.
This shrimp chili sauce is the soul of flavor whether it is served with rice or noodles.
In the morning, Xiulan cooked and they made some scallion noodles. Adding a little dried shrimp and spicy sauce made the taste even better.
"I don't know when it will rain." Lin Heng sighed as he looked at the sky. After entering the dog days of summer, the rain suddenly became less.
He has not been able to swim these past few days. The water in the Red Maple Mountain Stream has dried up a lot and a lot of moss has grown.
"I don't think it will take two days. Let's go to the back hill to harvest sunflowers."
Xiulan looked at him and said.
"Take it."
Lin Heng nodded in agreement and took Xiaoxia to the back mountain.
Recently, grapes and peaches have all failed to grow, and only apples are left in the orchard and are edible. The others are tangerines, oranges, and citrus trees. These ripen in winter and are still green now.
The sunflowers are all ripe. There are twenty of them on the back mountain and more on the Red Maple Mountain, about one or two hundred.
Because there is no pesticide, the sunflowers are infested with insects quite seriously, but Lin Heng thinks it is still acceptable.
He cut down the sunflower, and Xiulan, wearing gloves, peeled the sunflower seeds in a basket on the spot.
Xiaoxia was ordered to watch and talk to her mother.
After Lin Heng finished chopping the seeds, he also helped to peel them. There was no need to pick them out. He could just take them back and pour them into a winnowing basket to dry. Once they were dry, he could use a windmill to pick them all out together with the sunflower seeds from Hongfeng Mountain.
His parents have already harvested the sunflower seeds over there these two days.
After three days, the sunflower seeds have been dried very well. They are sent to the windmill and good sunflower seeds come out.
After weighing it, I found there were 58 kilograms of sunflower seeds, which is pretty good.
Half of it is fried directly, and the other half is divided into two portions. One portion is mixed with five-spice powder and salt and boiled in warm water to become five-spice melon seeds.
Another portion is made by soaking the seeds in milk for a while, then adding milk and sugar when frying them on low heat, which makes the melon seeds have a milky flavor.
Xiulan was not very good at frying, and Lin Heng was just listening. He tried it a few times with small portions, and then put all the food in and fry them all.
With so many melon seeds, I can now eat them to kill time when I’m bored and don’t want to read.
Just like doing these trivial things and eating three meals a day, time came to August 10th, the sky was gloomy and the wind was howling.
In anticipation of heavy rain, everyone got up early in the morning to clear the drainage ditches and lower the drainage outlets of the rice fields. The necessary cow and pig fodder was also prepared in advance to avoid working in the afternoon.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, accompanied by a rumbling thunder, a silent rainstorm came.
“It’s raining so hard!”
Xiaoxia exclaimed at the heavy rain outside.
After only a few minutes of rain, the ground was stirred up with splashes of water, which quickly gathered into a stream. For a moment, it looked like someone was pouring water from the sky.
Xiulan looked at the heavy rain, shook her head and sighed, "I hope it won't rain too hard, otherwise someone will definitely suffer."
"Indeed, it's best not to rain too much." Lin Heng nodded.
Caiyun was less optimistic: "But I estimate it will rain for at least two or three days. I hope those who live close to the river will be careful."
After watching the rain for a while, they went back to sit on the sofa and played checkers. Luming and Duheng in the stroller crawled slowly, looking at the heavy rain outside with their big eyes curiously.
The heavy rain continued, and within two hours Lin Heng discovered that the Huangtan River was full of water, and the water was growing bigger like an angry dragon.
He was a little worried about the situation in Hongfeng Mountain. This should be the first time that the small reservoir on the mountain has to withstand such a large amount of water since it was built. He didn't know if it could withstand it.
There is also the smelt fish he raised. In order to prevent this kind of thing from happening, he and his father went out in the morning to pull a net to prevent the fish from escaping. Now he doesn't know if it was useful.
If all the plum carps in a reservoir were gone, he would be heartbroken, as he has put a lot of effort into these plum fish.
But it’s not realistic to go out in such heavy rain.
It was not until late at night that the rain suddenly stopped for a while, and then turned into light rain, which made Lin Heng breathe a sigh of relief.
The next morning, the rain was still falling continuously. After breakfast, Lin Heng went to Hongfeng Mountain to check the situation.
"Dad, how's the reservoir?"
As soon as he saw his father, Lin Heng asked hurriedly.
Father Lin smiled and replied, "It's okay. The water here is not too strong. It only rushed out half a meter from the top of the dam. The net was not broken and most of the fish are still there. The net cage is fine too. It's just that a lot of branches were driven in and blocked the water outlet."
"That's good, as long as the fish are still there." Lin Heng breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this. As long as the dam and the fish are still there, everything else will be minor problems. This also shows that the location he chose to build the dam was correct.
After looking around Hongfeng Mountain, I found that there was no loss, so I turned back.
Then it rained to this extent for five consecutive days, which was fortunate because it was not heavy.
By the time the sky cleared up it was already August 16th, the beginning of autumn had passed and the dog days of summer were over.
After the weather cleared up, Xiulan and her friends went out to pick mushrooms, but when they came back they didn't harvest much because it had rained for too long and most of the mushrooms had rotted.
"It is said that someone went to pick them up in the rain two days ago and got a lot of egg mushrooms and broom mushrooms." Caiyun explained.
"There's no need. We've picked enough this year. If the weather clears up for a couple of days, there will be more. I'll pick them up then." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"When are you going to the mountains to hunt for ginseng?" Xiulan looked at him and asked.
Lin Heng thought for a moment and said, "I discussed with my eldest brother yesterday that we would go if it was sunny for two days, so we will leave early tomorrow."
"Will you be gone for half a month this time?" Caiyun asked.
"It's not that long. It will be as short as five or six days, or as long as ten days. We don't need to cook. We can bring rice, flour and pots and cook on the mountain ourselves." Lin Heng replied.
The two nodded in understanding.
In the afternoon, Lin Heng packed up his things, including various things he would need for going into the mountains. After he was done, he checked them two or three times. Living permanently in the mountains is no joke, and one must be cautious and careful.
This time they brought two dogs up the mountain, Lin Heng brought Xiongba and his elder brother brought Fengshou. Xiongba's son Haoyun, whom he adopted this year, was still a little young and not as good at hunting as Fengshou.
After packing up, Xiulan prepared a big meal for Lin Heng in the evening. The next morning, they got up at dawn, put on their backpacks and took the dog with them, quietly entered the woods from the back mountain, and then walked towards the Birch Cliff.
This kind of thing cannot be made public. If people know that you all live permanently in the mountains, they might have bad intentions.
(End of this chapter)
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